In recent years, with diversification of lives, improvement of life level, changes and improvement of attitudes, and the like, attention has been paid to various points around one's life. One of them is existence of malodors. For example, as the malodors, there may be exemplified a smell generated in kitchen, a smell generated in toilet, smells of seat and breath, as well as a smell generated by a pet, a smell from industrial wastes, a smell generated at the time when human hair is subjected to permanent treatment or dyeing treatment, a smell generated when food organisms such as fishes are stored in storing devices such as refrigerator, and the like. These malodors cannot be avoided during human life. Thus, there have been actively investigated ways of coping the malodors, e.g., a so-called masking technology which make the malodors insensitive, a so-called deodorizing technology which traps the malodorous component, and the like.
On the other hand, hitherto, malodorous components have been analyzed and a sulfur-containing compound, aldehydes, lower fatty acids, various amines, and the like have been reported as smelly components. The malodorous components vary depending on various malodors as above, and also with regard to the malodors, there are known from relatively simple ones such as malodors comprising smelly component(s) belonging to a sulfur-containing compound to malodors comprising a large number of smelly components where compounds belonging to the sulfur-containing compound, aldehydes, lower fatty acids, various amines, and the like are contained in various ratios. For example, it is known that a smell of raw garbage resulting from vegetables, eggs, meats derived from domestic livestock, fishes and shellfishes, and the like is mixed malodors of hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, trimethylamine, ammonia, lower fatty acids, and the like; a smell of toilet resulting from animal excretion is mixed malodors of ammonia, methyl mercaptan, hydrogen sulfide, indole, and the like; a smell of cigarette is mixed malodors of ammonia, acetic acid, acetaldehyde, pyridine, hydrogen sulfide, and the like; and a human body smell is mixed malodors of ammonia, acetic acid, isovaleric acid, nonenal, and the like. Namely, as a method of coping the above malodors, it is understood that a method of coping complex malodors comprising a large number of smelly components as mentioned above is preferred.
As the above deodorants, deodorants comprising a plant extract have been reported (Patent Document 1, Patent Document 2, and the like). The deodorants have a characteristic of people friendliness since they are naturally occurring ones but the deodorizing effect is not satisfactorily sufficient.
As a deodorant composition improving such a point, there has been reported a technology where a colored substance obtained by reacting a polyphenol with an alkali ingredient is used as a deodorant active component (Patent Document 3). The deodorant composition is excellent in a deodorizing effect but has an inconvenience that embodiments of using the deodorant composition are limited for the reason that the active component is a colored substance.
On the other hand, as a technology for deodorizing malodors containing a plurality of malodorous components, there has been reported a deodorant wherein a deodorizing liquid containing an alkali agent and a deodorizing agent containing an acid agent are separately stored so that an acidic smell and an alkaline smell are simultaneously deodorized (Patent Document 4). The deodorant deodorizes both of the acidic smell and the alkaline smell at the same time through individual vaporization of the deodorizing liquid containing an alkali agent and the deodorizing agent containing an acid agent, which are stored separately, and thus may be called as a kind of vaporizing deodorant, which is not a deodorant wherein individual deodorizing agents are applied to a malodor source. While the above deodorants show a certain level of effect, they cannot be said to exhibit a sufficient deodorizing effect and thus leave a room for improvement.    Patent Document 1: JP-A-9-290014    Patent Document 2: JP-A-9-290026    Patent Document 3: JP-A-2004-167218Patent Document 4: JP-A-2003-102819